I'm not sure about other guilds, but our rogues/warriors carry a lot of spare gear with them. On fights where they are beating on adds a lot (i.e. Vashj) they tend to run a lot lower on hit and try to stack up AP and Crit instead.
It's not that hard to lose 3-4% hit and gain 200 AP. And if you have a boomkin, why not? That's extra dps that the raid gains.
As far as dps goes, the above WWS parses are impressive. I have to wonder why the locks/mages were so low in comparison on some of them, but the boomkin was definitely representing. I'm going to have our boomkin take a look at them, and see what she can do to improve. She hit 1015 dmg/heal unbuffed last night, with 20% crit on Starfire, and hit-capped. Given that she's now starting to pull aggro on trash (gg Starfire crit before the tank has control), I have hopes that her dps is increasing.
Just a note: it took her 4 months to get enough gear to be moderately competitive. If you're giving someone two weeks, and expecting wonders, be patient. There isn't a lot of choices for gear unless you hand your druid a lot of cloth, so just be patient until all the real drops come. Ours is now running 4/5 T4 and 1/5 T5, with cloth belt/bracers/boots. Only thing missing is an epic dagger (Prince hates her, and there's no other weapon from the bosses we're killing).
Here is proof that a moonkin can break 1k dps with EASILY attainable gear. I only have kara raid gear and 1 piece of loot from 25mans(t4 shoulders), and the tailoring sets and i've broken 1k dps on 3 mag attempts, and yes i am on a box. And because of raid comp, i was forced to just spam starfire as debuffs were falling off. Wow Web Stats
One thing about imp faerie fire alot of people are forgetting is that alot of high end wars/rogues already sit at capped white/yellow hit.
Keep in mind that even if your DPS gains little or no benefit (which frankly is pretty unlikely, I think; prevailing thought on these forums, at least, has turned somewhat against capping hit rating for fury warriors and enhancement shaman at the expense of other stats, so those at least should be getting a decent chunk of damage) tanks are almost *never* hit capped on any progression fight. Hit translates very efficiently into more threat, which in turn increases raidwide DPS, not to mention reducing the "hey, he parried the shield slam, sorry about that one guys..." incidents.
Im raiding currently as moonkin, my gear is good but not perfect. You can check for yourself if moonkin is viable on this Wow Web Stats
I was healing on gurtogg and last 1/3 of council (about 500k dmg?), also sometimes focused more on the raids than the perfect dps cycle, i guess thats a bit of routine missing.
Nature damage on shahraz was a nice overall raiddamage increase. All mages had a spriest/resto shaman group.
Keep in mind that even if your DPS gains little or no benefit (which frankly is pretty unlikely, I think; prevailing thought on these forums, at least, has turned somewhat against capping hit rating for fury warriors and enhancement shaman at the expense of other stats, so those at least should be getting a decent chunk of damage) tanks are almost *never* hit capped on any progression fight. Hit translates very efficiently into more threat, which in turn increases raidwide DPS, not to mention reducing the "hey, he parried the shield slam, sorry about that one guys..." incidents.
Sure it might increase meele-dps a little bit and raiddps by a tiny bit since most raids mainly have caster-DDs. It also might help the tank a little bit not significant bit. But what shall a Moonkin sacrifice for imp.FF ? We have to skill agro-reduction, we have to skill spellhit, we have to skill manareg to stay viable. One point might be by sacrificing treants but one point is not enough.
Show me a talent distribution that keeps me viable for dps-place in raid (i can dish out arround 900 dps, up to 1000 if i dont have to move) while skillung imp.FF.
On my Realm, people have a very skeptical opinion about Moonkins.
Well, just looking at your build I'd take 3 points out of intensity and 1 point out of treants. Put another point in Subtlety and 3 in improved fairie fire.
You have 135 spirit. According to the armory character sheet this translates into 110 mana per 5 seconds while not casting.
This means that with intensity you gain 16.5mp5 while casting.
There's no way that's worth as much as 3% to hit for all of your physical dps. If you like, leave it at 4/5 subtlety and keep trees (which is probably slightly more debatable in terms of value - 1% melee hit or trees? zomg).
Sure it might increase meele-dps a little bit and raiddps by a tiny bit since most raids mainly have caster-DDs. It also might help the tank a little bit not significant bit.
A little bit? It's 3 talent points, come on, what do you want? Fairie fire only reduces the mob's armor by "a little bit" in the first place, insect swarm only reduces their chance to hit by "a little bit". Most player debuffs, whether in their improved or base forms, are really very small on their own.
The cumulative effect of all these little bits is big, though. Sure, you can cut out improved fairie fire. Will anybody notice? Not without using WWS or something similar. You could cut out insect swarm and probably no one would notice, shadow embrace and no one would notice, misery and no one would notice, etc. Take away all that stuff? It'll be obvious.
Individual things like that aren't EVER detectable on their own, except through the placebo effect (omg, you're not using improved fairie fire and there is such a HUGE difference, omg). That doesn't mean they aren't useful.
We've been raiding with a moonkin since halfway through SSC, although it might just be because he's a great player, but he's always in the top of our DPScharts, and add the fact that he brings the crit aura and imp FF really justifies his spot. It's almost noticable if we replace him with a mage/lock for some fight.
[04:04:29] <Malan> Kaubel just laid the smack down in the the blizzcon thread
[04:05:07] <Kaubel> fucking idiots. i need to go on a banning rampage and put things right once and for all.
[04:05:20] <Kaubel> our forums are infested with pussy.
...not to mention reducing the "hey, he parried the shield slam, sorry about that one guys..." incidents.
Not to derail, but +hit has no effect on parries. Adding hit only reduces your chance to miss. The only way to reduce the chance a mob has to parry your attacks is to increase your weapon skill (unless there's a -defense debuff I'm unaware of.)
One thing about imp faerie fire alot of people are forgetting is that alot of high end wars/rogues already sit at capped white/yellow hit.
Many will also have alternate pieces for various slots which have slightly less +hit and more crit/AP that can be used in their place.
Well, just looking at your build I'd take 3 points out of intensity and 1 point out of treants. Put another point in Subtlety and 3 in improved fairie fire.
You have 135 spirit. According to the armory character sheet this translates into 110 mana per 5 seconds while not casting.
This means that with intensity you gain 16.5mp5 while casting.
There's no way that's worth as much as 3% to hit for all of your physical dps. If you like, leave it at 4/5 subtlety and keep trees (which is probably slightly more debatable in terms of value - 1% melee hit or trees? zomg).
Unless you're lacking access to BoS, FoN is probably going to add more to your total damage than an additional 1.6% threat reduction, depending on the fight. And while 16.5 mp5 may not seem like much, Intensity is a fairly important talent because: raid buffs add large chunks of spirit. Divine Spirit, food, Elixir of Draenic Wisdom, and then Blessing of Kings on top of it. Additionally, this talent allows Moonkin to value spirit for the in combat regen in ADDITION to the regen from Innervate, making gearing (theoretically) easier.
All told, 3 points in Intensity will amount for about 40 mp5 out of the total 191 mp5 a T6 geared Moonkin would have. Even assuming a healthy 250 mp5 from a Shadow priest, that 40 mp5 becomes the difference between our Moonkin friend going OOM in 6.5 minutes vs. 10.5 min.
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Was reading through the thread and I figured to post here to also show the viability of a moonkin druid in a 25 man. While my guild is not really to far into the high end content (Halfway through SSC) I feel I do decent DPS for the gear available to me thus far.
All this, while bringing a battle rez, 3% to hit (Imp Faerie fire), insect swarm (-2% hit on bosses) and Spell crit aura.
It really rely on your raiding composition, eg:
Do you allready have 2 supporter for your caster? A third one will benefit from the shadow priest and the shaman, but the priest don't need your aura and the shaman could be healer (healing crits are to unrelyable, so it' should just be overheal while spamming chainheal/lesser healing wave on the camp).
If you have only one or even none supporter, the balance druid could shine. But do you can substain your damage for the full period of a bossfight without a shadowpriest?
+++ You have a battle res, that can be useful. But it shouldn't be needed with "perfect execution", of course..
++ +3% hit is huge for your (warrior) tanks and nice for a melee dps boost (hunter are regulary hitcapped) and if you don't have a feral druid, a balance druid can keep you up fearie fire easily.
- A beastmaster hunter can support the castergroup allmost as well as a balance druid can, and has a better synergy with a shadow priest (but not on a pet unfriendly fight of course).
-A hunter can substain higher dps in allmost any situation and game progression state and has "no" aggro problems.
- Misrediction is nice for your tank(s) to get a buffer at the beginning of a fight.
- Scorpid sting is stronger in defense then insect swarm (3% difference).
Are there other hunter in the raid?
- If he's the only one, he could be a survivalist as well and provide hugh attack power boni (beside improved hunters mark) for all of your melee (including tanks and pets). But with that specc, he can't support single group dps any longer (losing his synergy effect with the shadow priest).
It really rely on your raiding composition, eg:
Do you allready have 2 supporter for your caster? A third one will benefit from the shadow priest and the shaman, but the priest don't need your aura and the shaman could be healer (healing crits are to unrelyable, so it' should just be overheal while spamming chainheal/lesser healing wave on the camp).
If you have only one or even none supporter, the balance druid could shine. But do you can substain your damage for the full period of a bossfight without a shadowpriest?
Yes you can as you can see from the post I made with my web stats. I had no shadow priest in my raid. As for shaman crits we usually stick a elemental shaman in my group.
+++ You have a battle res, that can be useful. But it shouldn't be needed with "perfect execution", of course..
That could be said about alot of things. Not to mention not everything is on farm or perfect.
- A beastmaster hunter can support the castergroup allmost as well as a balance druid can, and has a better synergy with a shadow priest (but not on a pet unfriendly fight of course).
-A hunter can substain higher dps in allmost any situation and game progression state and has "no" aggro problems.
Since the patch that let subtlety be applied to ALL spells I rarely have aggro problems if at all. As for BM hunters sustaining the group better then a moonkin druid, 3% damage versus 5% aura is not that big of a difference and the aura is always there and can help other classes with crit based talents. (Clearcasting and Master of elements etc.)
- Misrediction is nice for your tank(s) to get a buffer at the beginning of a fight.
We are not saying replace hunters with druids they *should* already be in the raid to be used....
- Scorpid sting is stronger in defense then insect swarm (3% difference).
Again you can have a hunter AND a balance druid. I believe insect swarm stacks.
Are there other hunter in the raid?
- If he's the only one, he could be a survivalist as well and provide hugh attack power boni (beside improved hunters mark) for all of your melee (including tanks and pets). But with that spec, he can't support single group dps any longer (losing his synergy effect with the shadow priest).
A survival hunter will not do as much damage as a balance druid and if there are other hunters in the raid all he will bring is a attack buff. (which there should be more then one hunter in a 25man) Whereas the moonkin druid brings all the utility previously listed.
Our moonkin doesn't see a lot of playtime. More on that in a moment. Anyway, here's an anonymous WWS parse of one of the nights in BT where our moonkin was in the raid - Naj'entus and Supremus: Wow Web Stats. Look for "Cumulus" and make sure you select the split you're interested in (I've linked the full report).
While I'm not our RL, I believe the reason we struggle to play "Cumulus" isn't due to a dislike of moonkin or a lack of straight-up DPS. I suspect the bigger problem is that in Hyjal he's magic DPS that can't polymorph, fear, or (most importantly) AoE reliably. BT through Shade of Akama isn't really very hard, so I won't comment on that.
The more general problem I think is versatility. Different mages & warlocks are more or less interchangeable - you'll have several of them in the raid but the exact number is flexible. We can CC, AoE, and nobody seriously questions the ability of mages or warlocks to do our fair share of DPS. Furthermore as long as you have a few of each, we can be shuffled around or substituted for each other pretty easily.
The other "class" of DPS in my mind is more the utility/single target class. They're all single-target mana using ranged DPS that provides their group with a buff, and puts a valuable debuff on the raid boss. Shadow priests, shamans, and moonkin fit in here. Maybe even hunters, though that's kinda out of the scope of this discussion. In general they can't CC or AoE, and it's unusual to bring more than one to a raid. The problem is that they're not as easy to substitute & shuffle around as mages or warlocks and because of class balancing for certain fights, they're often first to get the axe.
Furthermore moonkin are doubly screwed here simply because they're being compared to shadow priests who're unbelievably strong. If someone has to get cut to fit in another healer/tank/whatever, most mages I know are going to scream bloody murder if you take their SP away, but we'll just be grouchy if you take away our moonkin (or ele shaman for that matter). It's just a case of limited raid slots with the 25-man cap and what the RL considers necessary to complete an encounter. In cases where the raid needs an extra DPS push on the boss, a moonkin might be what the doctor ordered. But far more often it seems like we need one more tank, one more healer, one more CC, or one more AoE.
Just a quick anecdotal remark on my part... when I was moonkin the casters loved the aura and I could put out a pretty good amount of damage. If you have a good player with good gear AND a free spot I don't see why you couldn't give it a shot.
However, make sure you have a good class make up before you give a spot away to a moonkin. If you can't down bosses without the moonkin I highly doubt the moonkin will sway the tide, if that makes sense.
While I'm not our RL, I believe the reason we struggle to play "Cumulus" isn't due to a dislike of moonkin or a lack of straight-up DPS. I suspect the bigger problem is that in Hyjal he's magic DPS that can't polymorph, fear, or (most importantly) AoE reliably. BT through Shade of Akama isn't really very hard, so I won't comment on that.
I think he's not using all his tools or timing his skills correctly then. Entangling roots, Hurricane 5sec before the real AoE starts and being the single target dps main assist scratching the aggro line is how a moonkin should play in there, if youd ask me.
When i was playing as moonkin in there, i was the ranged dps that can take a few hits of those mobs (they dont even oneshot mages/locks, healing a moonkin for a limited amount of time is no problem, barkskin, 11k hp, 11k ac without weapon swap). When i grabbed aggro because a tank had more important stuff to do, i could still root him on his way to me and if that broke i popped barkskin and ran to the next tank.
I noticed generally that its a good use of a moonkin to be a failsafe and tank supporter. On Alar for example i just moonfired both adds in phase 2 so they dont run around hitting healers and i was standing near the offtanks to pick them off me.
Of course this is only working to a limited amount and you got to know which add deals how much damage, but that shouldnt be a problem, if you played either feral or resto before on the encounter as both are involved in watching how much damage the mob deals.
Also wearing full cloth somewhat lowers the ability to do this aswell, im only wearing 2 cloth parts in my gear.
There are more raidjobs for moonkins out there than some may believe, the usual tactics just dont involve them, as they are never build around having always a moonkin around. I guess its in the druids hand to find good use for their skills and suggest or simply do it then.
All these posts about dps and whatnot, but nothing about moonkin Threat.
At the moment, I'm sitting around 1000~ raid buffed spell damage. I find I have to hold back a lot of my dps because I will pull aggro from the MT.
Last time we did Void Reaver, I had the 5/5 threat reduction talent, I had to battle res, heal and buff the dps warrior... and at the end I had just barely passed the tank when we dropped him.
And tonight we were putting in some tidewalker attempts, and I was hugging the tank for threat once again. I see people on here like Caliane, geared right out, but with 0 threat reduction talents.
Is there something I'm missing... or maybe our tanks just don't do enough tps?
Riding the tank for threat on VR is common, and it's not a very hybrid-friendly fight. Our enh shaman, ret paladin, and boomkin all have issues with threat on VR.
Morogrim ... no. Your tank is sucking if you have issues on Morogrim. Our rogues put out 1100-1300 dps on Morogrim, and they *barely* keep up with the tank, blowing their vanish around 60% to ensure full-out dps.
Your tank should be easily putting out 800+ TPS (sustained) due to the big hits and infinite rage, so you should never catch up. BoSalv is more than enough for a ranged dps on that fight.
If a tank outgears the fight badly you might run into threat problems. If he still gets infinite rage, then it shouldnt be a problem, especially when you help on AoE with hurricane and stomp.
With 5/5 subtlety and poking our palas till they kept up the sometimes single salv, i dont run into threat problems anymore in any other fight really. And if i do on trash i usually use clickcasting to moonfire the next tanks mob, while i wait for the first tank to build up more threat.
I personally only have 4 in subtlety but I have not pulled aggro in a long time anyways, well not on boss fights =P. On the VR fight we have 3 tanks up there to play ping pong with the aggro and hunters misdirecting all three of them. If one loses aggro the other one gets it and I never get aggro.
All these posts about dps and whatnot, but nothing about moonkin Threat.
At the moment, I'm sitting around 1000~ raid buffed spell damage. I find I have to hold back a lot of my dps because I will pull aggro from the MT.
Last time we did Void Reaver, I had the 5/5 threat reduction talent, I had to battle res, heal and buff the dps warrior... and at the end I had just barely passed the tank when we dropped him.
And tonight we were putting in some tidewalker attempts, and I was hugging the tank for threat once again. I see people on here like Caliane, geared right out, but with 0 threat reduction talents.
Is there something I'm missing... or maybe our tanks just don't do enough tps?
A little of both likely.
Under most circumstances, the tank should be out pacing your threat easily. If I were to do a full dps burn, of mf,sfx3 with an elemental shaman, and spriest.. Ok, yeah, id be doing 1300-1400 dps and pull on anything.
But a stable dps, of is,sfx3, or mf,is, sfx3 is more like 1000-1100, and the tank should have no problem out threating that.
Void reaver and morogrim present problems as noted. Tidal wave snare, and vr deaggros.
Other fights its more of a dangerous burst issue. Alar adds, leo, etc. Winding up a starfire, and criting for 7k 3seconds after an add is pickedup is a problem without threat reduction. But playing it smart, and pacing yourself during sensitive moments is easy enough.
Use omen or ktm. Its less important to give you a readout of your threat, as much as it is to show you how much threat your tank has.
You cant tell if the tank missed a sheild slam, or was parried, etc. But omen can.
we had a moonkin druid in our 25 mans now for quite a while...and us casters benefits really alot with the aura. And the best thing is, he himself does super good damage so its perfect.
recommended for almost all raids, especially if you got alot of casters
Has anyone ever considered a moonkin/resto shaman/pally/pally/spriest group?
Mana spring/tide and shadow priest would make up for quite a few of the moonkin's mana problems and the crit aura would make the pally wet themselves and increase ancestral fortitude uptime.
Depends on who you have in the raid really, but this group could do some silly healing longevity. Mind you, this only works if you have a ~lot~ of s. priest love to spread around. (Or are willing to deny your hunters/holy priests/resto druids one).
Not all balance druids have mana issues I for one do not often have a mana issue. Starfire is very mana efficient. when I raid I usually am in a group with a mage, ele shammy and two locks and it works really well.
07/27/07, 1:35 AM
bagh!).
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